


Of Lionesses and Tugging Tails

by cannibaljoke



Series: A Witch Second, but a Witch Always [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cannibalism, Dracula Influence/References, Espionage, Gen, Hannibal is a god, M/M, Magic, Movie: SPECTRE (2015), Mythology References, Post-SPECTRE, Q is a witch, Witchcraft, the fake marriage trope, there is no graphic violence in the first chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 06:18:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13518306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cannibaljoke/pseuds/cannibaljoke
Summary: "Q spares one more look for Eve and her lovely gold dress, and decides that there is no way the artist will say no to anything Eve asks, because Eve just has that effect on people (whether it is her charm and good looks, or the way her smile would better suit a lioness about to go in for the kill is still up for debate)."Or the one where we add Eve to this ever-growing mess of relationship yarn, and see what will happen (or, the one where another person jumps down the rabbit hole into the wonderland where Hannibal is Alice or something like that, if you want to go for metaphors).





	Of Lionesses and Tugging Tails

Before Q gets around to asking Hannibal for that favour (to figuring out what he even wants from Hannibal), the whole mess with Spectre happens. Everything to do with Spectre is, frankly, inconvenient and annoying for Q. Everything from the mess Bond makes when taking Spectre down and the remnants of Spectre that try to kill everyone they deem responsible for the decline of their organisation. 

What makes everything all the more inconvenient and annoying is how Bond thinks he has the right to just take off when MI6 needs their best and brightest to clean up the mess Spectre made. What makes it all the more inconvenient is that Bond thinks he has the right to ask Q for favour while Q cannot expect any help from him when there is a mess of blood, loose ends, and who even knows what else to mop up. 

During the first month of the post-Spectre clean-up, Q decides that if (more like “when”, Q thinks, Bond is not made for a life of happiness and calm) Bond returns, Q will make Bond’s life utter hell. During that month Q also realises that Spectre may have been poorly constructed and standing on rotten legs, but the bits and pieces that remain of Spectre are still vicious and out for blood.

Frankly, Q is slightly disappointed when nothing particularly exciting happens while swiping Spectre under the rug, so the public does not realise how close everything they knew was to collapsing and turning into dust. Spectre dies like the old men that made it, unsurprisingly and unimpressively (they just stop breathing and their wives giggle to themselves as they sip champagne and watch their husbands being buried). Spectre dies the way it deserved to die, without ever meaning anything to anyone. (Q has never liked old men who think too much of themselves and disrespect women, so Q just smiles and drinks tea as he watches the delicate card house that was Spectre collapse. Honestly, Q thinks, if Spectre knew anything they would have taken people like Q out before going after people like Bond. After all, while Bond needs a more or less steady line of sight to kill someone or something, all Q needs is an internet connection and preferably a keyboard, but he can do without both of those, because curses and hexes do exist.)

When the dust after the demolition of Spectre has barely settled, Q gets swept into the mess that is trying to find Hannibal Lecter again. For some reason (as if he does not know why, Q thinks, the reasons are agents dropping like flies while cleaning up Spectre, and Bond being a complete and utter prick and just walking away), this leads to Q and Eve going to France, because there are reports of Hannibal Lecter being in town. (That and Q knows that Hannibal had to buy a new house in France, because his previous one did not have enough space for all the dogs, so it is highly likely that for the time being Hannibal is in France.)

Q finds that he wholeheartedly prefers going on missions with Eve rather than Bond, because Eve knows him. Eve knows that Q is hardly a little delicate flower (and that the only thing other than access to unfathomable amounts of information and knowledge that can get Q to do almost anything is wine), while Bond just thought that Q needed protecting. 

Sipping tea and watching Eve scroll through the morning news on her phone while they sit and look pretty and harmless and like cultured socialites at their hotel, Q thinks that perhaps he enjoys missions with Eve more because Eve fits his type more than Bond does (or “did”, to be accurate, because Bond is currently pretending like he will never have anything to do with MI6 ever again, but everyone knows that you can take the 00-agent out of his suits and let them put away their guns, but a 00-agent is always a 00-agent). 

Q’s type is, frankly, a vague one, there is no certain look that Q goes for (Q knows better than that, especially considering his type probably stems from the god that currently calls themselves Bedelia du Maurier, a shapeshifting and ever-changing deity of debauchery and wine, who looked considerably different when Q first met them), but there is a feel that Q goes for, a certain type of a cultured person-suit hiding a sea of darkness, endless knowledge, and all those other things that Q craves. Of course, that all said, Q requires for anyone he wants to spend time with (not to mention the people he allows into his bed) to have a sense of humour and a quick wit, because conversations about literature and Goethe are only interesting as long as Q gets to voice his opinion about Faust being an asshole, who deserved worse. 

“Are we going to go for the loveless marriage look?” Eve asks, bringing Q out of his thoughts, and puts her phone on the table. It seems the world, and England specifically, is just where they left it last night, judging by the news. 

Q smiles over his cup and shrugs. “Do you want to go for that look?”

“Oh, absolutely not, I’d rather take every opportunity to feel you up.” 

Q laughs and is, once again, so glad that it is Eve he is with, because playing a married couple with anyone else would be dreadfully boring. But Eve, who has never had much respect for Q’s personal space and has always had a relationship that borders on an office romance with Q (if only, Q thinks, because if it really was a romance, then he would get the pros alongside all the cons of rumours and snide remarks from old men, who think they own the world), is someone Q could almost imagine himself getting married to. If Q had any intention of ever getting married, he would marry someone like Eve, someone sharp and clever, someone who almost sees through Q’s mask (someone who also wears a mask, because Q could never trust anyone who appears to be their true self all the time).

The first few nights Q and Eve spend at different events in places that do not really matter. (And Q knows that neither Hannibal nor Will is going to show up, because if they were, there would be darkness in the air, there would be the scent of subtle and tempting death floating around like a sign.)

When Q and Eve arrive at a gallery opening on that evening, Q knows that Hannibal will be there before he even steps inside the gallery. (There are waves of dark syrup lapping at the buildings. If omens were something accurate, there would be a murder of crows crowing a cacophony of chaos and fear. Q almost chokes on the darkness, because there is so much of it and it has been so long since he has been this deep inside it. It feels a bit like being suddenly pushed into a lake, except it is a lake of blood and there are the bones of those who have been thrown in before you at the bottom.)

“I wonder if they’d let us buy something,” Even sighs into Q’s ear, looking at a painting of two beautiful women.

“If you can argue the purchase was made for the betterment of our cover, yes,” Q replies and Eve’s smile turns into something that resembles molten gold or honey. 

“Even if I can’t, you can,” Eve says, smile still in place, “Can’t you?”

Q rolls his eyes, but he already has countless excuses prepared, so he just pushes her towards the artist. “Go, get your painting.”

Eve looks victorious (and Q thinks that she would fit much better to a battle field somewhere in the desert with blood splattered onto her) and there is a slight skip to her walk as she speaks to the artist. Q spares one more look for Eve and her lovely gold dress, and decides that there is no way the artist will say no to anything Eve asks, because Eve just has that effect on people (whether it is her charm and good looks, or the way her smile would better suit a lioness about to go in for the kill is still up for debate). 

Q spends most of the evening people-watching, while Eve seemingly focuses on the art, but Q knows that she, too, is keeping a keen eye on the crowd. 

In the end, it is when the jetlag has caught up with Q and he is rubbing his eyes, while Eve has an arm around his neck and her other hand pressed against his front (looking like the distorted mirror image in a curved mirror of an average socialite couple, but a very attractive distorted mirror image, Q thinks), that Hannibal and Will show up. In a room of average socialite couples, both Eve and Q, and Hannibal and Will stand out like two sore thumbs (or like dismembered thumbs, or like two wounds, or like anything else macabre and more accurate). 

So, Eve darts off to chat with Will at the bar, because the bar is clearly where Will is headed, and Q catches Hannibal’s gaze across the room and gives a small wave. 

“What a lovely surprise, Q,” Hannibal says with a polite nod, smiling slightly. 

“Ah, it’s Quincey Morris for the duration of this week,” Q responds and he can see the effort it takes Hannibal not to rolls his eyes or snort or otherwise impolitely express his distaste. 

Instead, Hannibal raises his eyebrows and smiles wider (and this is a real smile, he actually finds this humorous and Q is infinitely grateful for his childhood obsession with Dracula). “I’m frankly shocked that you did not come as Jonathan and Mina Harker.” 

“It was tempting,” Q admits, “but I don’t look like a Jonathan.”

“And another book was out of the question?”

“Did you really expect me to let the Dracula comparison go, Count?” 

Hannibal gives Q a long-suffering look and says: “One can always hope.” 

Q cranes his neck and almost presses a kiss to Hannibal’s cheek in apology (his lips do not quite touch Hannibal’s cheekbone), whispering: “Sorry, you’re too fun to tease.” 

An overly dramatic gasp makes Q and Hannibal move apart.

“I leave you alone for one minute and you’re already being unfaithful,” Eve gripes, clearly more amused than upset by how she found Hannibal and Q. 

There is a moment, where Hannibal and Eve look at each other. And there is a pause, when their eyes meet and Eve’s smile turns even sharper. And then Hannibal is politely introducing himself and Eve is more or less shamelessly giving him a onceover. 

In that moment Q knows he sees more than he is supposed to, he sees Hannibal’s mask slip and he sees Eve’s mask slip. In that moment, Q realises that he has been playing with something more than a co-worker all these years, Q realises that Eve is something old and something dangerous and Q has been underestimating her just like everyone else (like a lioness, Q thinks, Eve has let him tug at her tail, watching and waiting and seeing if Q would make a nice meal or for some convenient entertainment instead). 

“Oh,” Q says to no one in particular and a corner of Hannibal’s mouth tugs upward while Eve’s arm snakes around Q’s back. 

Q might be in over his head. Seriously this time and not just a foot over his head, but miles over his head.

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please, please, feed me feedback!
> 
> Even something tiny like 'I enjoyed it' or 'I think this is cool' would mean a lot to me.  
> Thank you.


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